Social media platforms such as Meta's Instagram, ByteDance's
TikTok, and Snap's Snapchat require users to be at least 13 years old. These
restrictions are intended to protect the privacy and safety of young children.
Ahead of Britain's planned Online Safety Bill, aimed at
protecting social media users from harmful content such as child pornography,
Ofcom asked TikTok and Snapchat how many suspected under-13s they had kicked
off their platforms in a year.
According to the data seen by Reuters, TikTok told Ofcom
that between April 2021 and April 2022, it had blocked an average of around
180,000 suspected underage accounts in Britain every month, or around 2 million
in that 12-month period.
In the same period, Snapchat disclosed that it had removed
approximately 60 accounts per month, or just over 700 in total.
A Snap spokesperson told Reuters the figures misrepresented
the scale of work the company did to keep under-13s off its platform. The
spokesperson declined to provide additional context or to detail specific
blocking measures the company has taken.
"We take these obligations seriously and every month in
the UK we block and delete tens of thousands of attempts from underage users to
create a Snapchat account," the Snap spokesperson said.
Recent Ofcom research suggests both apps are similarly
popular with underage users. Children are also more likely to set up their own
private account on Snapchat, rather than use a parent's, when compared to
TikTok.
"It makes no sense that Snapchat is blocking a fraction
of the number of children that TikTok is," said a source within Snapchat,
speaking on condition of anonymity.
Snapchat does block users from signing up with a date of
birth that puts them under the age of 13. Reuters could not determine what
protocols are in place to remove underage users once they have accessed the
platform and the spokesperson did not spell these out.
Ofcom told Reuters that assessing the steps video-sharing
platforms were taking to protect children online remained a primary area of
focus, and that the regulator, which operates independently of the government,
would report its findings later this year.
At present, social media companies are responsible for
setting the age limits on their platforms. However, under the long-awaited
Online Safety Bill, they will be required by law to uphold these limits, and
demonstrate how they are doing it, for example through age-verification
technology.
Companies that fail to uphold their terms of service face
being fined up to 10 percent of their annual turnover.
In 2022, Ofcom's research found 60 percent of children aged
between eight and 11 had at least one social media account, often created by
supplying a false date of birth. The regulator also found Snapchat was the most
popular app for underage social media users.
Risks to young children
Social media poses serious risks to young children, child
safety advocates say.
According to figures recently published by the NSPCC
(National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Young Children), Snapchat
accounted for 43 percent of cases in which social media was used to distribute
indecent images of children.
Richard Collard, associate head of child safety online at
the NSPCC, said it was "incredibly alarming" how few underage users
Snapchat appeared to be removing.
Snapchat "must take much stronger action to ensure that
young children are not using the platform, and older children are being kept
safe from harm," he said.
Britain, like the European Union and other countries, has
been seeking ways to protect social media users, in particular children, from
harmful content without damaging free speech.
Enforcing age restrictions is expected to be a key part of
its Online Safety Bill, along with ensuring companies remove content that is
illegal or prohibited by their terms of service.
A TikTok spokesperson said its figures spoke to the strength
of the company's efforts to remove suspected underage users.
"TikTok is strictly a 13+ platform and we have
processes in place to enforce our minimum age requirements, both at the point
of sign up and through the continuous proactive removal of suspected underage
accounts from our platform," they said. © Reuters
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